Monday, April 28, 2014

Traveller, Travel, Cat, Other Games, ...

Turns out there's a rule at the very end of the combat section that on a hit with effect 6+, you always deal at least one point of damage regardless of target's armor! Snipers fighting enemies in battledress, rejoice!

We considered abolishing our houserule that failed first aid checks cause damage equal to 2 * (the negative) effect of the check.

Traveller's rules for shotguns bother me, but I don't really know of a better and easy solution.

Traveller's VR goggles are TL13. I am bemused.

Had a fearsome dream about being sucked out of my apartment into vacuum. First time in memory I've woken up with elevated pulse. Thanks Matt. Particularly odd because I was only asleep for 20 minutes. Need to get back on my lucid dreaming training.

Kerbal Space Program. Got the asteroid update, started a new career mode game, observed three asteroids on impact trajectories with Kerbin, at 45, 60, and 70ish days from game start. Tried to race up the tech tree to the Claw to redirect them, but the pressure was too great (started juggling multiple ships en-route to Mun/Minmus at the same time to reach my science goals in time). Also learned that docking is hard.

Dominion - Cornucopia and Dark Ages go pretty well together, since spoils, shelters, ruins, madmen, and mercenaries are distinct cards. Dark Ages and Hinterlands' discard cards work well too, since you often have a lot of junk-in-hand in Dark Ages. I really underestimated Stables when I first met it.

Saw Ghost in the Shell with coworkers. There was a lot more soliloquy than I expected. Did think it was interesting that an Eastern take on cyberpunk would cast government agents as the protagonists rather than traditional lowlives.

Travelled to Tennessee for work. Gained like five pounds during five days on perdium. Went on a hike in the Smoky Mountains and an awesome tour of Oak Ridge. Discovered Corsair Triple Smoke whiskey, and with it that smoky whiskey can be tasty.

Kitten continues to grow. He is getting slightly mellower with age but is still pretty playful and very hungry. He has taken to hunting stink bugs (sigh). Hand for scale.

I read a book on the use of snipers in urban guerilla warfare. The essential method ("Fire on security forces, trying to incite an overwhelming response that causes collateral damage to civilians. This collateral damage tends to make civilians angry at the SF rather than you, and brings them to your side.") made me some combination of sad and angry. I'm still human! Hooray!

Played Cards Against Humanity with coworkers. Any karma generated by sadness at sniping was almost certainly wiped out (I did not score many points, but generated a number of "oh god that's horrible" moments).

I found this video highly amusing. Not vihart's most educational work, but quite entertaining, from a certain point of view. Further vihart videos have caused me to consider taking up algorithmic composition again.

(Also - rorschach blot screensaver on one of my home machines. Almost everything is bugs or spaceships)